What language should I use ?

[uk2usa]

Hi,

I'm a very amateur hand web coder. I wrote my website so that I could learn HTML and I use notepad for coding it.

The website has become fairly successful in its limited market place and I now would like to update it and give it a more modern feel. Along the way I would like to learn a more modern web programming language.

My question is, "what language should I buckle down and learn ?" I am guessing I should be using cascading style sheets to make the site easier to maintain and update. Is this correct or is it laughably out of date ?

[oomwrtu]

You sound like me! lol, style sheets are pretty much an absolute must to keep up with the times, but for a dynamic programming language, I think PHP is the easiest to start off with. Its easy to find tutorials on the internet (simply search for beginner PHP tutorials or something similar), plus it is usually included with free and paid hosting packages so it is easy to find a place to test it.

[uk2usa]

Originally Posted by oomwrtu

but for a dynamic programming language, I think PHP is the easiest to start off with.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. What is a dynamic programming language and why would I want to use one ? (I am starting from a position of exteme ignorance !)

[oomwrtu]

A dynamic language (that's not really the correct terminology, I should probably say a server-side language) is one that takes data from the user, sends it to the server, and then returns something based on what the user put in. Shopping carts, product catalogs, and forums (basically anything that has to store data and then recall it at another date) are examples of applications that use server-side languages. There are many out there (ASP, PHP, Perl/CGI, Ruby) but like I said, PHP is probably the easiest to learn and find places to test your work.

Helpful links:
What can PHP do?
A Simple Tutorial

Hope that clears it up a bit more, obviously post if you have any more questions... :D